A COMPARISON OF THREE LATER STONE AGE BONE POINT ASSEMBLAGES FROM SOUTH AFRICA

The presence of bone points in archaeological contexts has previously been interpreted as evidence for hunting. These interpretations, however, are based on the morphological similarity of the bone points with ethnographic and historical bone-tipped arrows, and not on any functional studies. Macrofracture analysis has been used successfully on experimental stone- and bone-tipped hunting weapons and is applied here on a set of bone points from three Later Stone Age sites. It confirms that bone points from Nelson Bay Cave, Jubilee Shelter and Rose Cottage Cave were indeed used for hunting activities. The results presented here suggest that there may be some patterning in the size distribution of bone points across the landscape.